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Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

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Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#121

Post by AnimalMuppet »

amenghra wrote: post #64
_fat_santa wrote: post #60

I was just in Vegas and saw these rolling around. They seem to have a mix of robotaxis (like the ones pictured) and decked out Toyota Highlanders that look like Waymos but not as well "packaged", though in my personal experience I saw far more of the Highlanders than the custom robotaxis and all of them seemed to have a driver behind the wheel. Vegas is an interesting place to launch IMO (and I believe they only oper…

Vegas is also good for many other reasons: year round good weather, lots of tourists in need of taxi services, too hot to walk, too drunk to drive, etc…

It still snows in Vegas from time to time. Also, sandstorms are not great for visibility.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#122

Post by standardUser »

sgnelson wrote: post #32

I feel like robotaxis are just electric bikes and scooters of 2025. I very well could be wrong (I think I am) but that's the vibes I'm getting from the robotaxis industry right now.

In the US, there's a good chance that AVs will become dominant in 10 years time. In China, it's all but guaranteed.

Apollo One has already launched service in the UAE and is expected to launch in Singapore and Malaysia by the end of the year. They're also expected to start testing in several European countries by the end of the year. The question I have at this point is, will only China benefit from launching this new global industry, or will the US manage to also be competitive on a global scale?

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#123

Post by paulnpace »

octernion wrote: post #118
paulnpace wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you sound pretty entitled and have a set of "rules" that aren't traffic rules. > i'm glad we will have robot cars to keep folks like you in your place. you aren't entitled to make the rules of the road. Nobody is required to be polite and considerate while using a shared resource, and if your opinion prevails, we will, indeed, have a cold, heartless society. It is mildly interesting to me that you interpret being p…

heartless society is when someone has to wait at a red light for a few more seconds. and yes, enumerating a set of silly non-law "rules" you expect drivers on the road to follow is the definition of entitlement.

> heartless society is when someone has to wait at a red light for a few more seconds. and yes, enumerating a set of silly non-law "rules" you expect drivers on the road to follow is the definition of entitlement.

Many of the traffic lights in this valley are more than 5 minutes per cycle. You are completely naive to the facts of the discussion you have entered.

Please quote my above comment where I stated my expectations of all drivers.

This form of sophistry is not recommended in text-based discussions.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#124

Post by ivape »

zamadatix wrote: post #16
ivape wrote: post #6

How do we know this isn’t just an autonomous vehicle wrapper company?

Zoox is a subsidiary Amazon since 2019, if that's what you mean. If you mean software/hardware - they are full stack, i.e. they didn't buy this as prebuilt from say Waymo and slap a Zoox sticker on it.

It's worth asking because we are expecting Uber and even some car manufacturers to be full wrapper companies with zero ability to standup and support their own technology with regards to this.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#125

Post by ratelimitsteve »

maelito wrote: post #4

The most useful thing I expect from robotaxis is speed regulations. What's considered normal for humans, driving higher than the speed limits, will not for automatic cars.

I disagree wholeheartedly. I think the most useful thing about robotaxis is that you can count on them to pay attention and react within a given timeframe and that speed limits will either be expanded greatly, eliminated or calculated as a function of the capabilities of the individual hardware in question rather than our best guess as to how an average person would probably react. I'm looking forward to driverless cars careening about at 200+ mph because they can actively communicate and coordinate with traffic around them in order to do so safely.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#126

Post by PhunkyPhil »

addaon wrote: post #107
PhunkyPhil wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think self-driving targets a problem that doesn't really exist. The issue isn't that the act of driving is a laborious task, it's simply the amount of time spent in a car, which FSD doesn't address.

> The issue isn't that the act of driving is a laborious task Said like someone who doesn't have elderly parents, and doesn't plan to age…

FSD is not being marketed as an aide for elderly people or those with disabilities, it's being marketed as a panacea for all driving related problems

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#127

Post by AnimalMuppet »

leetharris wrote: post #57
techterrier wrote: post #17

Hopefully some genius will figure out a way of joining lots of these together into a 'gigapod'. That might have enough capacity to actually work at city scale.

I am getting so unbelievably tired of this smug comment. It reeks of reddit spam. We all know trains would be nice. Unless you have some plan to rework our government into something that will allow for innovation here, then I prefer to see progress, even if it's not ideal.

I don't think the idea was trains at all. I think the idea was, if we're going to have N of them driving down The Strip, it would be more efficient to join them physically together than to have them maintain normal inter-car spacing.

And that could work, if the car in front can communicate power/brake/turn commands to the cars in the chain. And if you could dynamically drop cars out of the middle when needed. And if you could dynamically add cars when they're neighboring and going the same way. All those could be tricky, but they seem quite solvable.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#128

Post by PhunkyPhil »

kevlened wrote: post #93
PhunkyPhil wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think self-driving targets a problem that doesn't really exist. The issue isn't that the act of driving is a laborious task, it's simply the amount of time spent in a car, which FSD doesn't address.

Too much time spent inside may be a problem, but FSD turns car cabins into rooms. If we're inside already, a room with a destination is often better than a stationary one.

This is true.

Now to start a tangent, what's the easier problem to solve: FSD, or a robust public transport system? Moving rooms have always been around in the form of trains, busses, streetcars etc...

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#129

Post by Stratoscope »

phkahler wrote: post #83
_fat_santa wrote: post #60

I was just in Vegas and saw these rolling around. They seem to have a mix of robotaxis (like the ones pictured) and decked out Toyota Highlanders that look like Waymos but not as well "packaged", though in my personal experience I saw far more of the Highlanders than the custom robotaxis and all of them seemed to have a driver behind the wheel. Vegas is an interesting place to launch IMO (and I believe they only oper…

>> though in my personal experience I saw far more of the Highlanders than the custom robotaxis and all of them seemed to have a driver behind the wheel. The robotaxis have a steering wheel? I thought they had campfire seating with 2 backward facing seats.

I think that comment meant that the Highlanders have drivers.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#130

Post by paulnpace »

standardUser wrote: post #114
paulnpace wrote: post #91

I now see their development vehicles all over the valley, whereas previously if I was near the Strip that's the only region I would see them in. This valley has congestion issues pretty much all day everywhere, plus a traffic light management protocol that results in very long light cycles. Many of us when coming to a red light where there are multiple lanes and traffic is light, will make a point to not stop in the…

Waymo has been a good actor in every way I can think of so far. They're transparent, their expansion is cautiously paced, and their safety record exceeds that of human drivers. I'm not sure what more we could ask for. Tesla on the other hand seems determined to put cars on the road ASAP and just hope for the best, but local regulatory hurdles seem to have stopped them for the most part. Zoox, from what I can tell, is…

> Waymo has been a good actor in every way I can think of so far. They're transparent, their expansion is cautiously paced, and their safety record exceeds that of human drivers. I'm not sure what more we could ask for. Tesla on the other hand seems determined to put cars on the road ASAP and just hope for the best, but local regulatory hurdles seem to have stopped them for the most part. Zoox, from what I can tell, is taking the Waymo approach.

Why change the topic to safety?

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